War and peace in the Indian Ocean

In May 2010, Sri Lanka, the Pearl of the Indian Ocean, celebrated the first anniversary of the end of the 26-year civil war. Susan Bennett has lived with and worked as a volunteer alongside its people since 2006. Here she describes the challenges for people with sensory impairments living in remote areas.

As you crest the ridge high up in the centre of Sri Lanka in the Knuckles Mountains, blue skies stretch across the entire horizon, etched by the clear lines of sharp peaks and steep rock-faces.

A precarious single-track road, deep with potholes, leads the way to a remote village down in the deep valley bottom. Luscious wavy lines of paddy fields, shadowy grey shapes of water buffalo grazing the pastures, and occasional bent stick figures of local villagers working the fields with hand ploughs and machetes, show how little life has changed in the last hundred years.

As I arrive with my partner from the Abode Trust, Sidanthe, the welcome is unconditional for this is our second home and we easily slip into its warmth. Members of the community arrive to greet us, and invitations to eat and sleep in their homes flow fast.

We admire the new babies born in the last few months and the stacks of newly bagged grain, proof of the success of the recent paddy harvest. There’s news of a death the previous week, a stillborn child and of the terrible cough and debilitation of an elder.

In the middle of a thunderstorm, Banda brings Kumar to see us. They’ve come from the other side of the valley under two huge umbrellas. Lean and with the erect posture of the military, Kumar’s on leave from the army for the New Year. Round his neck he wears a decommissioned cyanide capsule taken from a Tamil Tiger.

Kumar has been deaf since birth and has had no access to hearing support. I show him the aids I’ve brought for him, I fit them and turn them on.

Hearing the torrential rain outside, his face lights up and he cocks his head to one side with attentiveness. Then he smiles, a smile that comes from his heart and dazzles the room.

Everyone begins to talk and cry at once, in what Kumar must have found an assault of sound. It’s a moment of excitement, humility and wonder. And all because of a pair of second-hand hearing aids donated in the UK.

It began in 2006 when I was taken to the village by Sidanthe. I learnt not to recoil in horror at the size of the crickets or at leeching. I got used to eating with my fingers, sleeping on the hard floor amidst unfamiliar bodies, and making my toilet in the jungle, and I found ways of washing discreetly in the river while subject to many curious eyes.

Since then we’ve been working with the villagers through war and peace and have become members of the community, accepted and expected to make a contribution.

I well remember the moment one of the village leaders accidentally tried my glasses on and found that he could see newsprint and the pictures in a bird book for the first time in many years. That led to us supplying second-hand glasses from the UK to the local people. And I recall the memorable day a deaf man was brought to meet me in the toddy man’s (local liquor) house and the effect one of my digital hearing aids had.

It was a surprise to find the villagers had little in the way of sensory aids. That’s not to say there’s no healthcare in Sri Lanka, but most of it’s located in the main towns and cities and there’s little beyond the basics for those who cannot afford to pay.

Glasses are unseen and even children struggle with old fashioned and inadequate analogue aids, unless their parents are rich enough to go private. In this village and many others that’s not even a remote possibility.

The peace and Tsunami funding have made little difference. There are rural health camps where doctors come to the remote areas every year but gaining access to state-funded spectacles or hearing aids is an onerous process and prone to attrition. You can gain bog-standard and ancient old-fashioned glasses or hearing aids from the state but few in the villages have the confidence, persistence or the assertiveness to pursue their case.

Life’s too close to the limits of survival to devote time to any health matters that aren’t immediately urgent or extreme. Village people live isolated lives, are unused to dealing with officials, become humble and invisible when faced with professionals and have little literacy. To even consider the six-hour return journey to the towns and cities on the one bus a day is a step too far for most. So most disabled villagers with hearing or sight problems, adults and children alike, manage without help.

Over the years, as part of the Abode Trust, we’ve sought to bridge the gap by bringing used glasses from the UK, donated voluntarily by churches, individuals and the third sector to this village and others in the remote areas of Sri Lanka. We leave them with either the village leaders or the local Buddhist monks who supervise their distribution according to need.

The challenge now is to bring more glasses, digital hearing aids and, more importantly, a constant supply of batteries to the villagers.

• Find out more about Susan Bennett’s work at theabodetrust.com